Posted
by
kdawson
on Friday March 21, 2008 @10:14AM
from the heron-your-chest dept.

markybob writes "Ubuntu Hardy 8.04 beta has been released. It features GNOME 2.22 and uses Linux kernel 2.6.24. Furthermore, it uses Firefox 3 beta 4, and PulseAudio is enabled by default. To ease the transition of Windows users, it includes Wubi, which allows users to install and uninstall Ubuntu like any other Windows application. It does not require a dedicated partition, nor does it affect the existing bootloader, yet users can experience a dual-boot setup almost identical to a full installation."

Anyone have any information about this? I prefer having a linux environment but my work laptop *must* run windows thanks to company software. This seems like it may be a much better solution for me compared to, say, cygwin.

I think it's new enough that there isn't a lot of first-hand experience with it. The FAQ [wubi-installer.org] describes it in Alpha, although the download link refers to it as Beta... in any case, my suspicion is that it is likely not very stable yet. You may want to experiment with it on a home PC before putting it on your work laptop.

I would simply make a ghost image of your work laptop as is before installing any other OS. And dual boot between Linux and Windows. When you are required to turn in the laptop, simply reimage the laptop with your original settings, and all are none the wiser.

Use VMWare. You can use tools from VMWares site to convert your existing Windows installation to a virtual machine, then install VMWare server on Ubuntu using the GUI, grab a license key for free from VMWares site, and fire up your newly created virtual machine. Then you shouldn't lose anything, and you can run them both simultaneously.

Take a look at http://wubi-installer.org/ [wubi-installer.org] and see for your self. Essentially it uses a large file on your windows OS as the file system. When you install it, it modifies your bootloader to give you the option of booting to that machine.

If you decide you don't like it, just reboot into Windows and uninstall it via add/remove programs.

Performance is slightly slower due to the extra hoops your *nix OS has to jump through, but you won't notice if you're running on modern hardware. I liken it to being able to boot to a VMWare image.

There's a small difference. UMSDOS was a (ugly, but useful) hack that allowed to use FAT files and directories as if they were UNIX-like files and directories. So even if you booted in MSDOS/win you could read the linux files. WUBI is different: It stores a whole Linux filesystem in a file. Wubi then mounts the NTFS filesystem with NTFS-3G, and the big file containing the linux filesystem is mounted with the loop device as an ext (or reiser, or whatever) filesystem.

I use (the free) VMWare Server (not ESX) on Windows boxes for various Linux installs...including Ubuntu. I do not understand an earlier comment stating that VMWare Server is complex. You install it as a Windows application, fire it up, select "new VM", choose a linux distro (Ubuntu 32 and 64 are options) for the VM architecture, and away you go...you now have a VM ready for a Linux install. The Live Ubuntu CD works with no issues...as does the default Ubuntu install.

You can also tweak the number of processors, hard disk size, and memory that you assign to the VM, but VMWare suggests low-end (working) default values. I have run VMWare on numerous machines (laptops, desktops, servers) and it just plain works. It is a fantastic way to test out various distros without putting the Windows partition at risk. If you take the time to mount and install VMWare Tools in the VM's hosted OS, switching back and forth between the host and guest OSes (including copying and pasting) is a breeze. You can also have as many VMs (and OSes) installed as you please. Want to play with 8.04 without losing 7.10? No problem. Create a new VM.

Downsides include:

- It is virtualized. Thus, it is going to run significantly slower than a native install.

- You are limited by the types of hardware architectures that VMWare simulates. That said, I have not had issues getting any sound or graphics card to work...and the networking options are fantastic. I cannot get access to all four cores however. The free VMWare server only allows me to create a VM that simulates either 1 or 2 CPUs...and I am not sure how many cores the VMWare container is using.

- Memory...since Windows is still running, it needs its share. Thus, you need a lot.

Of course, on the positive side, Windows is still running...so you have access to whatever you need there (e.g., Outlook, games, whatever). You can also run in reverse, and run VMWare on Linux and install Windows in a VM, but I dare say that most of us are in a situation that requires (or prefers) the VMWare on Windows approach.

I assume that Windows is not running in the WUBI option and that Ubuntu is running right on the metal (not virtualized), with full access to the real hardware architecture and all of the memory. Putting the HD in a Windows file must have some performance impact, but most likely far less than the entire OS in a VM (which also uses the Windows file approach for the HD). Does anyone have anecdotal performance impressions for WUBI? It sounds very cool and a great option for someone who is not yet committed...but I will say that I am not much of a fan of modifying the boot loader, but perhaps I am just being overly skittish.

My empirical evidence shows otherwise. That may be due to a range of factors...not the least of which is the fact that the VM creates a hardware architecture that is more generic and thus, you may not have access to optimized drivers for your specific hardware (e.g., graphics card). The fact that an entire windows stack is running underneath the VMWare server application also cannot be understated, however, regardless of how efficient the VMWare Server application is. Keep in mind, I am talking about (th

By your comment about performance being "slightly" slower, and that you "won't notice if you're running on modern hardware", I take it that this is the pseudo read/write mode provided by the kernel NTFS drivers -- that is, you can only read/write to a file, but you can't change any of its attributes, including size, and you can't create or destroy files.In other words, it's a mode that's really only useful for creating disk images, for things like a Linux filesystem, or swap. Not really like umsdos at all.

You could also look at innotek's VirtualBox. It's pretty fast if you've got an Intel or AMD CPU with the virtualization instructions, and there's a GPL version that lacks a few features like letting the VM see USB drives.

Another free option is Qemu Manager, which is a free Windows frontend to the free QEMU. Not as fast as VirtualBox on a virtualization-enabled PC, but not bad if you enable the KQEMU dynamic recompiler. There's also MS's Virtual PC, but IME QEMU and VirtualBox work a little better with Linux. And lastly, of course, there's VMWare Server, although IME it's a little harder to set up.

I wish I had some mod points right now for this - I'm currently in a similar situation where I'm locked down in to Windows for 80% of everything I do and my laptop is too mission-critical to even think about messing with the partitions. VirtualBox has been a godsend, even though it seems slightly blasphemous to be virtualizing linux under Windows.

My advice is to wait for the final release of hardy, which should be rock solid stable. It is still decently buggy at this point.

I second that. There are loads of broken things in Hardy right now.

I have been upgrading to the Ubuntu "beta" release some 2 months before the official release for some 2 years now. Hardy is the one that gave me the most trouble so far. Never had to fill so many bug reports.

They made a truly royal mess with scim (sorry you can't uninstall).

My bluetooth headset doesn't work anymore.

They are using a new wireless driver (for intel) that is giving me loads of trouble.

I use vmware which works great if you have 2GB of memory or so. (You can run it on a lot less, but I find 2GB is enough to mean that I don't have to worry about it running, and can just leave it always on)

In addition to what other/.ers said about WUBI, there's also the possibility to use Live USB distribution.PenDrive Linux [pendrivelinux.com] has a lot of resources about this kind of distributions.I've been using their Quick and easy Pendrivelinux [pendrivelinux.com] for quite some time.You can buy commercial preinstalled ones from companies like Mandriva Flash [mandriva.com].

It works to a very similar way to WUBI, but on a flash drive.Essentially it puts 2* big files that contain the file system on the USB drive, and make the USB stick bootable using "syslinux". You start it by hitting F12 when the BIOS starts and choose to boot on the USB drive instead of your hard drive.(whereas WUBI puts a big file with the partition/on the windows drive/ and adds a new entry to the Windows boot loader to make the system. So you boot you hard drive normally and then use Windows XP's boot menu to select Linux instead of WinXP).

So in that solution, your hard drive is virtually untouched (not that creating a file and adding an entry are *that* much big change) so it may please more the paranoid admins at your company.

Last-but-not-least there's also the running-Linux-inside-Virtualbox [virtualbox.org] (or some other virtual machines that have native-speed performance) solution. It's a bit complicated, but has the benefit of letting you run your Linux apps along side the Windows desktop (with possibilities for native integration, either using a X-Window server for Win32, or using the virtual machine's client tools).

* - most Live USB solutions tend to use 2 files : one is a big read-only file containing the live system, the other is read-writeable and used to store and remember modification (newly installed software, upgrades, user settings, user's home, etc.) between session.This is because most Live USB distribution are descendant of Live CD distribution (where the CD-Rom is read only and holds the live distro and a RAM-disk holds the modification, using a UNIONFS to bridge the 2 together).The big advantage of this system is that in case of a big fuckup, you can still reboot using only the original live system (just like a LiveCD) and fix/rebuild/create a new read-write big file.Of course there are also other solutions for partitioning and installing linux on a USB stick the same way you install it on a harddrive.

A working Linux system requires at least 3 parts:1) a root filesystem, where the bulk of the files that comprises the system reside2) a kernel which understands your hardware (or at least the disk hardware and filesystem format and of the root filesystem, other parts can all be loaded as modules later on)3) a boot loader, which is executed by the BIOS, and knows where to locate and execute the kernel

In most common Linux installs, the root filesystem resides on a dedicated partition on the first hard disk, usually in the ext3 format. The kernel is often a also in this partition, but can be in a seperate/boot partition. Its location is unimportant as long as the bootloader know where to find it: you could put it on a FAT partition and use a DOS based bootloader like loadlin if you want. Nowadays the standard Linux bootloader is Grub, which understands many common Linux filesystems like ext3, jfs, reiserfs, so if you put you kernel on one if those filesystems it can boot.

Wubi makes use of the fact that the Linux kernel can mount single files as if they were disks/partitions. This is called loopback mounting a file, and many users have already used it at some point when mounting.iso files. But that file must still reside on some other partition/filesystem that has already been mounted. So what Wubi does is, it installs the normal Ubuntu root filesystem in a single file, and puts that on your NTFS formatted Windows partition, along with the kernel (which can mount NTFS partitions read-write these days thanks to ntfs-3g), and the grub4dos bootloader. Grub4dos is a modified version of Grub, which can locate the kernel on NTFS disks, and can be chainloaded from the Windows NT bootloader (meaning, the NT bootloader can boot grub4dos which in turn boots the Linux kernel). Wubi packages all this in a user-friendly Windows installer. Note that although you can add and remove Ubuntu like other Windows apps, you cannot run it alongside them. This is _not_ emulation or virtualization, it's still dual booting, with the only twist that it leaves your existing Windows partitions untouched.

To recap:

Normal Ubuntu startup1) BIOS loads Grub2) Grub loads the kernel from an ext3 partition (which also conains the root filesystem)3) the kernel mounts the designated ext3 partition and uses that as the root filesystem (actually it starts off with initramfs, which is a root filesystem in memory that is swapped with the on-disk "real" root filesystem later in the boot process)

Wubi startup1) BIOS loads the Windows bootloader NTLDR2) when selected from the menu, NTLDR loads grub4dos3) grub4dos loads the Linux kernel from the Windows partition4) the kernel mounts the Windows partition, then mounts the file on that Windows partition where Ubuntu was installed in and uses that as the root filesystem

The only experience I have of WUBI is a bad one. Granted the install of it went very well and worked. However since its on the same Partition as windows there will be some issues if ubuntu gets messed up.I dont know if Im an only person this has happened to but this is my case.

I was doing updates when my PC lost power. For whatever god given reason it messed up the boot loader. So i figured okay no problem Ill just use Grub or something. However even when using grub It would no longer boot my windows partit

Hey all, thanks for the ton of responses! I should have been a bit more descriptive - I'm a tech at my company, and the network admin, so I can pretty much do as I please with my kit. However we're mandated by company policy to have lojack4laptops installed and our motherboards have a bios module that does this without our interaction - sadly the module only works in windows. I was going to dual boot but vista won't shrink the partition small enough for me to do so (for some reason it has stuff stored at th

Anyone have any information about this? I prefer having a linux environment but my work laptop *must* run windows thanks to company software. This seems like it may be a much better solution for me compared to, say, cygwin.

I have the same problem, but I get around it on my linux laptop by running XP within VirtualBox (which is free and doesn't need for a license key like VMWare). You can pause the virtual machine when you're not using it, have the desktop resize with the virtual machine window, and there's even stuff like bi-directional clipboard support. Setting up shared directories between the host OS and the virtual OS is also extremely easy. I remember trying to setup VMWare back in 2000, and the distance virtual mach

You, sir, are ignorant. In a corporate-type environment, it's probable that his laptop is set up on Active Directory, he's got an AD account, and so on. That kind of thing needs an IT tech to set back up after he's blasted away his Windows partition, and even if the tech is cool with the idea of him doing this, he probably won't appreciate the user creating work for him and basically attempting to bypass security & other settings.

Why? It seems like a good thing to me, just as long as there is an option to install it the old fasion way, if you don't have Windows. But the problem with Linux adoption is the fear of replacing Windows with Linux is a one for all problem even if you do a parition it is getting complex because there is a chance that you may damage your primary OS. This is a safer way to experience Linux. New if you fear that Windows would lure people away from using Linux because of all its great features and interface,

WUBI won't interfere with your windows partition. You can get rid of it by simply deleting your c:\wubi folder or by going into your add/remove programs and uninstalling it. You can also run the installer provided by WUBI. If you choose to just delete the folder you will still have to contend with the boot menu item. You can delete that by modifying the c:\boot.ini file.WUBI is an optional way to install Linux. The 8.04 ISO image is designed to be booted and run as a live CD where you choose the install

Just installed the amd64 version on my quad core box. I am really liking the goodies -

Startup is quicker than previous version on the same hardware. Filesystems are now mounted with 'realtime' flag out-of-box - yay for even more speed!I was able to install it inside of Windows (Vista x64) without any performance loss using the Wubi installer - Ubuntu entry appeared in Windows boot loader and I did not had to partition my NTFS formatted disks - you can try and see how it works without losing data or even disk space when you am done trying it. Cool.

which allows users to install and uninstall Ubuntu like any other Windows application.

Since when is Ubuntu a windows application? It isn't even an application.. It is a Linux distribution. If Wubi get's out into the world as "the way to install Ubuntu" noob users will assume they need Windows to install a Linux distro..
why is no one creating an app to turn it around?
You can convert your Windows partition to a VMware disk and save it to an USB disk or network store..
Install a Linux distro,
install a Virtual Machine player (Innotek virtualbox, VMware)
put the disk back and load windows from within Linux..
And install and uninstall windows like any other Linux distribution software package

The "relatime" mount option tells the filesystem to update atime only when it is older than mtime or ctime. This is better than turning off atime entirely, but doesn't have the performance issues of the older atime functionality.

I remember hearing about this in past updates, but no info in the summary. I've tried to install Ubuntu a number of times on my PC and laptop but I always ending up having graphics card errors and the fixes I've tried either failed, were too convoluted and time consuming or just way above my depth of knowledge. I've heard that that 8.04 will solve a lot of these issues as well as making Ubuntu even more painless to install.

"The" torrent--I'd post a link for you, but there are, like, 50 different torrents depending on which one you're looking for. Just scroll down to the mirrors, and pick a local mirror. I had no problem using one of the US mirrors--the main downloads page wasn't working, but the mirror worked immediately.

I am using the Ubuntu beta since the early Alpha versions and I should admit that everything is going into place very well. Actually using it, you'd never say it's a beta given how polished and smooth the user experience is. A little bloating on the other hand is pervading the desktop setup and maybe too many services are active by default. With 512mb RAM you will need to disable something to have a better experience but compared to some competing OS the situation is really good.Comparing the Ubuntu 8.04 be

How's the PulseAudio decision working out so far? I've run into lots of PulseAudio problems in Fedora (which enabled it by default in Fedora 8), so its a little bit surprising that Ubuntu has decided to enable PulseAudio by default. Personally, I don't think PulseAudio is yet ready for mainstream use, so I'm wondering what the justification for this decision was.

How's the PulseAudio decision working out so far? I've run into lots of PulseAudio problems in Fedora (which enabled it by default in Fedora 8), so its a little bit surprising that Ubuntu has decided to enable PulseAudio by default. Personally, I don't think PulseAudio is yet ready for mainstream use, so I'm wondering what the justification for this decision was.

Indeed there are problems with PulseAudio, and I agree, this was a risky choice for an LTS release.

Here is one example bug: audible stuttering, pops [launchpad.net]. It appears to be primarily a PulseAudio matter, in that sound breaks up under CPU load: even alt-tab to another app like Firefox that renders at 100% CPU for a fraction of a second. However it may also be related to the new scheduler (CFS), since desktop responsiveness in Hardy seems poor compared to previous Ubuntu releases, particularly on low-end hardwa

I partially agree, however, pulseaudio is a full-featured, low-latency audio server. What's missing is app support. While I don't entirely agree with it, this seems to be a move to force applications to support pulseaudio. The Ubuntu developers will probably be writing patches for a number of libraries and applications and sending them upstream. For legacy ALSA and OSS applications, there is pasuspender (pause pulseaudio and give a single app direct ALSA access) and padsp (emulate an OSS device for an appli

The feature-for-feature pissing contest they have with Vista. Vista says they have per-application sound support? Ubuntu has to slap in PulseAudio, despite it's obvious unreadiness for mainstream adoption, just to say "YEAH, WE HAVE THAT TOO!". It's just another checked box.

It's a shame, as I'd rather Ubuntu spent more time enhancing the features that make it better than Vista than getting involved in buggy tit-for-tat feature creep.

Here's what's I think is important (and new) Ubuntu 8.04 Beta, with my comments. There are more new things, but I don't care about them.

Xorg 7.3 - the main advantage should be easier configuration, especially in multi-monitor setups. I haven't tried it yet, so I can't say. But it can only be better than what we have now.

Linux kernel 2.6.24 - The new & neat things here are dynticks for amd64 (power savings), the new CFS scheduler (you should experience less lags when your system is loaded). I'm mostly interested in the dynticks part.

PulseAudio - this is supposed to clean up the linux audio mess. I say wait and see.

Firefox 3 Beta 4 - I tried Beta 3 and it's *really* an advance over Firefox 2. I can't say that I personally witnessed any real speedups, but the new location bar is really cool. It takes a day or two to get used to it, but it really changes the way you surf.

Transmission - a new Bittorrent client. I'm using it regularly since months, and it *rules*. It's exactly the way a bittorrent client should be.

Brasero - a new CD/DVD burning program. I have never used it, but I can only hope that it is the way Nero 5 was.

World clock for the clock applet - that's really handy. Never type "what's the time in california" into google again!

Virtualization - it's supposed to be some super-easy and clicky integration of virtualization. I'm looking forward to it.

Xorg 7.3 - the main advantage should be easier configuration, especially in multi-monitor setups. I haven't tried it yet, so I can't say. But it can only be better than what we have now.

Having had a rather bad time trying to get dual monitors set up in Gutsy, I've just tried the new screen applet (using the vanilla auto-configured xorg.conf).

Looked pretty good at first; it shows the two monitors side by side, showing the one I hadn't been using with a screen resolution set to 'off'. I set that to 1152x864, and pressed 'apply': Lo and behold, it turned on and showed my desktop at that resolution -- except that the monitor I had been using before was now set to 'off'. I used the apple

Had a tiny issue with KNetworkManager. It only wanted to recognize one network card at a time. I had to manually edit/etc/network/interfaces to fix it. That's the only old-style hackery I had to do. Did everything else via the GUI.

Now it's functioning as a gateway, interfaces with Windows machines on my home network via samba, set up apache and all that stuff. KDE4 is a bit tough to customize. The features are pretty sparse. I can't te

Hello, even if not recommended for, a main machine (at home), I've installed 8.04 beta. I cleaned the system partition (/home is safe elsewhere) and made a fresh reinstall. My current installation has several upgrades on it and I want a good LTS, free of old stuff.

My first impressions...
The theme is almost the same, the menus are the same, but there are some theme inconsistency between windows...some processes lunched by root get a different theme. Emerald not working.

the new applications rock, lots of changed applications, upgrades and beta software... As an LTS I think the developers chose soft that may be maintained longer, even if it is still in beta.

By the way, Firefox 3B4 integration with gnome is fantastic.

Only a thing that is not so good. If you have multiple accounts in the computer, the installer won't scan/home for users, so you will have to add them manually... The problem is that the GUI to add/change groups don't let you assign a new user to an existing/home/stuff dir. Also, nautilus (running as root) is broken when you try to change the ownership of something.

All hardware running well, no strange things happening. Yet.
Congratulations and many thanks to the ubuntu dev team.

Rather annoyed at Ubuntu. It worked great on my Dell Precision M90 laptop in 6.? (whatever the one before this was). I upgraded to 7.10 and the sound, wireless, and suspend all broke.

I managed to fix them by doing a lot of Google and package installation (here is what worked: the sound required the installation of something like "ubuntu_backports". The wireless (an Intel chip) required the installation of the i386 drivers (as opposed to the "generic" drivers used by the non-default version of the kernel). The suspend required installation of something called "ps_suspend" though I tried a lot of scary-looking other suggestions before this worked, with the annoying fact that I had to reboot every time a test failed. I'm quite certain that most people would not have figured out or tried any of these. (hint for googling: use the animal name, ie "gutsy")

Normally you can blame lack of hardware manufacturer support and/or lack of resources to test things, but not when it worked in the previous version AND the system can be fixed to work in the new version.

From my Google searching it sounds like a lot of people complained about the lack of such quality compared to the previous Ubuntu.

Any word on whether I can expect the same, better, or worse from this new version?

The move to pulseaudio as the default sound systems is welcomed. It's mastry of emulating OSS, ALSA and ESound are simply awesome and supposedly these are emulated more efficiently than the origtional competing sound systems.The problem is that there is an alsa compatibility library that needs to be fixed ASAP before this distribution gets released.

To see the breakage just run the VoIP client named Ekiga and get into it's audio wizard. It just hangs there.

I've been studying long and hard to learn Asterisk and I'll be damned if I will run a distribution that can't provide audio to SIP client software on my laptop.

https://answers.launchpad.net/alsa-plugins/+question/27568

I was an early adopter of pulseaudio on my 7.10 laptop and have suffered not being able to run voip clients such as: X-Lite iaxcomm Ekiga Twinkle Kphone

I really like Ubuntu, but I'm concerned they may loose significant market share if they don't resolve this matter FAST in the beta stages of 8.04.

I saw on the Kubuntu pages the other day they are forking into 2 versions, one free ( 'with limited functionality') and a commercial version with 8.04. Is the parent Ubuntu heading that way too?

It was certainly how Mandrake and Redhat went. Sucker people in for a couple of years with free versions then release payware ones with all the stuff you want on whilst releasing stripped out crippleware free versions.

There's Fedora (which Redhat supports) which has the bleeding edge stuff that other distributions get the benefit of. PulseAudio is enabled in Hardy Heron which Fedora 8 currently has it. BTW Fedora 9 is being released around the same time as Hardy Heron

There's CentOS which quoting them "... is an Enterprise-class Linux Distribution derived from sources freely provided to the public by a prominent North American Enterprise Linux vendor. ". That Linux vendor is redhat.

What you're paying for Redhat is the support which makes sense for business to have a safety net. There's nothing different software-wise (as far as I know) except that you have someone to call when some UH-OH happens.

Where did you read that? If you look at the official page https://wiki.kubuntu.org/HardyHeron/Beta/Kubuntu [kubuntu.org] you'll see that the difference is the commercial support available. Since KDE 4 is not intended to be used by the general public just yet, there will be one version of Kubuntu 8.04 with KDE 3.5 that is supported, and one with 4.0 that isn't.

My reading of that is that the KDE 4 version is new and in development, so a) not all features in the KDE 3 version are necessarily present or working yet b) they're not offering commercial support for it yet.

I still don't see how you get to that conclusion. The difference between them is the availability of commercial support for the KDE 3 edition, while there is no support (or, community support only) for the KDE 4 edition.

I think what they are doing here is keeping a safe, stable desktop for their long-term stable release. This is the release that has commercial support available if you so choose, but it is not required. At the same time, they are trying to keep their community users happy by offering them the option of using a release which has KDE4, but shares the remaining base system. Of course, with KDE4 in it's very early stages they don't want to officially support it. It seems this is just a move to appeal to a broad

Since 8.04 is a long term support (LTS) release which will be supported for years, they don't want to include the still incomplete KDE4. So the only version you can choose to buy commercial support for will use KDE 3. And since a lot of their users don't care about commercial support, there is still the unsupportable KDE4 option.

In short, Kubutu with KDE 4 is missing features because KDE 4 is missing features, not so that Canonical can make money. Both versions are available for free (without paid support).

I took that statement to mean that since KDE 4.0 is still a very new thing and still has a few bugs that haven't yet been shaken out, Canonical isn't supporting it just yet. Once they get it playing nicely with everything else that comes in a typical Kubuntu distribution, they'll rejoin the two fork paths, but for now they're pushing KDE 4.0 support out to the Kubuntu community.

For my $.02, that's probably a smart move, as I played around with the Kubuntu 7.10/KDE 4.0 community release and it's definitel

I fully admit might be misunderstanding what they meant by that comment, but it looks like a lesser featured free version and a full featured commercial version.

Uh, no. The free version uses KDE4, which is, though "released", still incomplete in several respects. The commercially supported version uses KDE3, which is complete and stable, but not bleeding edge.

I saw on the Kubuntu pages the other day they are forking into 2 versions, one free ( 'with limited functionality') and a commercial version

Can you provide a link? Seriously, I haven't heard anything of the sort, and can't find any corroboration on the Kubuntu site [kubuntu.org].

Perhaps you're referring to the fact that although Ubuntu 8.04 will be considered "Long-Term Support" (LTS), the corresponding Kubuntu 8.04 will not be LTS (it will still be supported, just not for as long). The reason for this decision being that KDE 4.0 is still "too fresh" for Canonical to guarantee that it will be stable-enough (and unchanging-enough) to warrant the LTS labe

After all, you can install Ubuntu 8.04 LTS, and then install the package "kubuntu-desktop" to add all the required KDE packages. Most of the system (kernel, servers, most apps, GNOME, etc.) will be covered by LTS and receive patches for years. The KDE components will only receive patches for 18 months (of course after that you can just upgrade to the next supported version of Ubuntu or Kubuntu anyway).

Release available through CDs for groups who need it (ie. LoCo teams, conference teams, etc.) as well as downloading

As I understand it, there will be 2 versions Kubuntu 8.04 and Kubuntu KDE 4 Remix 8.04. The vanilla version has the standard support lifetime with updates and you can purchase support from Canonical, basically the way it has always been. The Remix version includes KDE 4 and is a bit less stable. Therefore, the Remix version does not offer official support and you need to go to the forums. I am not sure what the security or bug update procedure is, that is, whether or not packages found only in Remix will receive security and bug updates. So the "commercially" supported version is the same Kubuntu as usual, but Remix is for all of those people screaming about KDE 4.

I am not sure what the security or bug update procedure is, that is, whether or not packages found only in Remix will receive security and bug updates. So the "commercially" supported version is the same Kubuntu as usual, but Remix is for all of those people screaming about KDE 4.

The KDE4 version will use the same repositories, so there won't be any packages found in only one version. KDE4 will be in the standard repositories (not sure if it'll be in main or universe), so you can install it from the KDE3 version of 8.04. The only difference between the two versions is which version of KDE is installed initially.

I did here that there would be two versions of KDE shipping, but I don't see how they can charge for Kubuntu while keeping Ubuntu free, since they basically run the same software and can use the same repositories.

I think you're confused. Canonical splitting any of their official distros into a limited free version and a fully-functional paid version would violate their own promise [ubuntu.com] that Ubuntu will always be free of charge. Even if they wiggled out of that on a technicality, Ubuntu lives purely on the strength of its community. Canonical know that and would be insane to risk losing them through such a move.

The actual situation is that Kubuntu will be splitting into two versions, both of them free in all senses of the word, for the 8.04 release. One (using KDE 3.5.9) will be officially supported for 18 months (it won't be a Long Term Support release, since KDE 3 likely won't be supported in three years, though it will still support upgrading directly from 6.06) while the other (using KDE 4.0.2) will be community supported. This is probably because (like me) they think that KDE 4 really isn't ready yet as it hasn't had much time to mature and many of the Extragear application (some of which come with Kubuntu) haven't been updated yet, the most notable for me being Amarok.

My understanding is that Kubuntu will only do this split release system for the 8.04 release, with the 8.10 release likely to use KDE 4.0.x officially.

That promise was my point exactly, so i do hope i just misunderstood the wording in their news blurb and nothing really has changed.
On the risk of losing their base due to dumb stunts: RH went thru the same thing, so it IS possible.

Where does it say this on their site? I only see two different versions: the KDE 3.5 version (which is commercially supported just like all previous releases) and the KDE 4.0 version (which is a community-supported version; like a spin-off version). You may have confused this with them charging for Ubuntu/Kubuntu; however, this is how it has always been.

KDE 4.0 has some fundamental problems. They tried to somewhat mimic the Vista start menu and essentially failed. They were trying to shoot the prairie dog and killed the horse by mistake. IMHO they created an ugly weak and problematic menu.Other things are that KDE 4.0 was released early so that developers could work on it to help resolve issues and create new features. In the end, as far as end users are concerned tho, if they chose to use it as an early adopter they will have to put up with some extre

I have only been able to get windows to run when Grub is physically on the same drive as Windows. This makes me put Windows on the first drive, and Linux on any other drive (including the first). As long as Windows and Grub are on the first drive (and the/boot/menu.lst is visible), Windows boots fine from Grub.

Another note, when booting from Bios (not using Grub), Windows can be on any drive, even if it was installed differently. In other words, if I install Windows to the first drive (/dev/hda) I can l

It must be... you posted a comment that it's a slow news day on the article that you believe proves it's a slow news day. If there was something else interesting/important going on, you would have commented on that article and not this one.

If you're a Linux contributor (and also then presumably a user too), then the benefit of more Linux users should be obvious: Better driver support from hardware manufacturers, more software being targeted to the platform, and of course more people willing and able to contribute to Linux and Linux-oriented software.While it's a fair point that blindly copying Windows is not a good idea, I don't see many Linux distributions doing that. There is plenty going on in the arena of Windows inter-operation sure, but

You can't very well blame the extremely hardworking Ubuntu and Linux kernel developers when hardware manufacturers actively block their attempts to write drivers, refuse to release specs, etc. Sure, it would be another success for Linux if it could support your device without using the Windows drivers. But you act as if it's a failure for Ubuntu when you try to use incompatible hardware with it. In future, try to buy from vendors whose hardware is at least possible to support under Linux.